


Everywhere and Always

by sahiya



Series: Everywhere and Always [1]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe, Hurt/Comfort, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-24
Updated: 2011-03-24
Packaged: 2017-10-17 06:12:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/173779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahiya/pseuds/sahiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been a long time for all of them, and there’s a lot of water under the bridge between the Doctor and Jack. But Rose is five hundred years old and has lost too many people to give Jack up so easily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everywhere and Always

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Betterwiththree's h/c Bingo challenge for the prompt "exhaustion (Jack)." Many thanks to Fuzzyboo for beta reading and Canaan for helping me with my characterization of Eleven. Feedback is, as always, greatly appreciated. Spoilers for _Children of Earth_ , but not really for S5 (unless Eleven's presence is, itself, a spoiler).

If Rose had learned anything in her very long life, it was how it felt to lose people.

Her mum. Her dad. Her human Doctor. Her little brother Tony, the first person she should never have outlived.

Her children. Her grandchildren.

There was about a hundred years after that when Rose didn’t have any friends or lovers, not even any acquaintances. She bought a house in Alaska, which was still the middle of nowhere in the 22nd century, and didn’t speak to anyone. People in the nearby town told legends about her: she was young, she was old, she was the granddaughter of the woman who used to live there. She was immortal.

She wrote letters to her dead. She slept, sometimes for days on end. She cooked elaborate meals from the groceries she paid to have delivered, very quietly, to her doorstep, and set the long dining table as though it were Christmas dinner at her parents’ house, long ago, when her children had been children, her Doctor had been alive, and she hadn’t yet realized what she was. She wept and railed and wished for the end.

But Rose couldn’t keep her silence forever. After ninety-eight years, four months, and five days, she left the house one fine, cool, summer morning and walked to town. She bought chips and ate them with ketchup, though she’d have preferred vinegar, and went to see a realtor about selling her house.

It was time, she decided, to find the Doctor.

It took a long time - nearly two hundred years - for her to find a way back to her home universe. By that time she’d buried another husband and a wife. There were no more children. She was strong enough to bury lovers, but children and grandchildren were unbearable.

Once she was back in the other universe - she couldn’t think of it as home after so long - it took her the better part of another century to find the Doctor. By the time she finally did, he’d changed again. He looked nothing like the man she’d spent most of a lifetime with, which was, she thought, probably just as well. This Doctor looked absurdly young, hardly older than she did, and he dressed like a stereotype of a barmy professor.

Rose would be lying if she said she didn’t miss the pinstripes and trainers. A bowtie. _Really._

But the Doctor was the Doctor, and in addition to being completely mad and rather rude, this regeneration had come out absurdly kind. It broke Rose’s heart sometimes, how kind he was, and at first she’d worried he’d only asked her to come with him again out of kindness. But by the time she had the energy to really worry about it, she knew that wasn’t the case.

This Doctor - her fourth - was not like any of her others, but that was all right. That meant he didn’t want her to be like she was, either. Five hundred years changed a person a lot on the inside.

But there was something missing. Someone, actually.

She couldn’t figure it out at first. She chalked up the strange, melancholy feelings she was having to homesickness. It was strange being back with the Doctor after so long away, and living in the TARDIS felt a bit like coming home to her parents’ house and finding they’d redecorated everything but her room in her absence. It wasn’t until she opened a door she thought would lead to the kitchen and found herself looking at Jack’s room that she realized what was wrong.

There was no dust - there was never any dust anywhere on the TARDIS - but that only gave it the preserved feeling of a museum display. The bed, with its black and blue bedspread, was neatly made, and the book and lamp on the nightstand were at perfect right angles to each other. Jack’s great coat was draped over the back of the armchair. Rose felt a lump in her throat as she reached out and ran a hand over it.

“Rose? There you are, I - oh.” The Doctor stopped. “What are you doing in here?”

Rose turned around. “I was aiming for the kitchen. The TARDIS led me here.” She hesitated, wondering if she ought to ask, if she really wanted to know. But she couldn’t not know, she decided. “What happened to him, Doctor? He’s like me, I know, but . . .”

“Bad things,” the Doctor said, his eyes shadowed. “You’ve been lucky, Rose. I know it doesn’t feel that way, but you have. Jack is different from you - his immortality is . . . well, it looks the same on the surface, but it’s different underneath. He feels . . . he _itches_. I abandoned him because he felt wrong, and when I saw him again, after I’d lost you . . .”

“What?” Rose asked. She gathered up the great coat in her arms and went to sit on the bed.

The Doctor paced around the room before grabbing the desk chair, flipping it around, and sitting in it, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “The last me . . . I could be terribly cruel. I’m not sure you ever really saw that part of me, but it was there. I got worse after I lost you. Some of the things I did . . .” He closed his eyes. “Some of them I’ve tried to fix. Others . . . can’t be fixed.”

“Which one’s Jack?” Rose asked softly.

He opened his eyes and looked at her. “I don’t know.”

Rose nodded. She looked down at the coat. How many years had it been left draped over that chair, waiting for Jack to come home? She stroked it. “I think we need to find out,” she said at last. “I’ve been feeling sad lately, and I didn’t know why. I think it’s Jack. I think - I need to see Jack.” She looked up at him. “You said terrible things happened to him. What things?”

The Doctor flinched a little. He stood up and turned away from her, bracing himself against the wall with one broad hand, “Earth in the twenty-first century is a hard place to be. Jack was on the front lines. He lost people.”

“I’ve lost people,” Rose reminded him.

The Doctor shook his head. “Jack . . . did things. Things you’ve never had to do. Things I hope you’ll never have to do.”

Rose stood, crossed to him, and took his hand in hers. “Why didn’t you go to him?” she asked. “Try and help him?”

The Doctor sighed and let his head drop. “I couldn’t, before,” he said, mostly to his hand. His fingers twitched restlessly against the blue wallpaper “We were too alike, Jack and me.”

“What about after you regenerated?”

“Been a bit busy,” the Doctor said, just a trifle defensive. “First there were Amy and Rory, and now there’s you. I keep meaning to, but like I said . . . I broke some things that can’t ever be fixed.” He sighed, deeply. “I’m so afraid Jack is one of them.”

This, Rose thought, was one of those moments that reminded her just how different this Doctor was. Of her previous Doctors, only her human Doctor might have admitted that much to her. The others may have let her draw her own conclusions, but to say something like that aloud would have been well beyond either of them. She reached up to stroke his hair. It was softer and longer than she remembered. It curled over his ears. “I think we have to find out,” she said again. “Or I do, at least. You could drop me off.”

The Doctor straightened. “No,” he said. “No. I mean, yes, to going to see Jack, but no to just dropping you off. Though . . . well, it might be better if he saw you first.”

“He won’t know you,” Rose pointed out.

“He’ll know me.”

Rose was silent. “Doctor,” she said at last, “what did you say to him?”

When the Doctor didn’t reply, Rose thought she might have crossed a line; when he pulled his hand from hers, she thought for sure he would leave. But instead he went to sit on on the floor, with his back up against the bed. She studied him, considered sitting on the floor beside him, and finally sat on the bed instead. He leaned his head against her knee; she laid her hand on his head and threaded her fingers through his hair.

A moment of silence hung between them, and then he said, in a hoarse voice, “I told him he was wrong. I told him it was painful to be in the same room as him. He spent a year dying for me, over and over, and I mourned his torturer in front of him. And then I asked him to come with me, knowing he wouldn’t, and when he refused, I punished him.”

“Oh,” Rose said. She wasn’t sure what else to say to that - the only word she had was _confession_. And then, because she couldn’t imagine the answer for herself, she added, “Why?”

The Doctor looked up at her with eyes that were startlingly old for his young face. “That’s the thing,” he said. “I don’t know anymore.”

She slid down to sit beside him on the floor, both of them leaning up against Jack’s bed. “We’ll find him,” she said, leaning her forehead against his. “And then whatever’s wrong . . .” She knew better than to say, _We’ll fix it_. The Doctor was right. Some things couldn’t be fixed. “We’ll do our best,” she finished. “And between you and me, our best is pretty good, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” he said, meeting her eyes from inches away. “I’d say so. Thank you, Rose.”

She smiled. “Any time, Doctor.”

It took time, but with the help of the TARDIS they finally tracked Jack down in a seedy bar in a rough spaceport. The Doctor was less than forthcoming about his last meeting with Jack, but Rose was nothing if not persistent, and at last she managed to weasel a few more details out of him. The Doctor gave her the bald facts: another seedy spaceport bar, a young man named Alonso, and a note written on a napkin, because he was dying and didn’t have time for the conversation he knew he and Jack needed to have.

“I know, I know!” the Doctor protested, darting around to the other side of the console, even though they both knew the spatial fluctuator didn’t need adjusting. “It was a terrible idea, throwing some handsome young thing at him six months after his lover dies horribly, but I was dying and I couldn’t -”

“ _Doctor_ ,” Rose said firmly, and to her surprise, he shut up, though he didn’t stop moving and he didn’t look at her. “You don’t know if it was a horrible idea or not. Maybe Alonso was exactly what Jack needed just then. You’re being awfully hard on yourself, I think. In a lot of ways, it wasn’t even you.”

“No, it was me,” he said, turning to face her now. “It was me, Rose, and he’s still here,” he tapped his temple, “I can feel him in there. I remember doing these things, but I don’t understand why. I can’t figure out why he was so cruel to Jack. Even if Jack does feel wrong, that’s hardly his fault. I don’t understand him. I don’t.”

“Shh,” Rose said, stepping carefully around the console, trying not to spook him. When he didn’t run, she cupped his face in her hands. “Stop this. You won’t be able to help Jack if all you can do is be angry at who you were for how you treated him.”

The Doctor shook his head. “You don’t understand.”

Rose frowned. He hadn’t said that to her even once since she’d back. “What don’t I understand?”

“It’s . . .” The Doctor closed his eyes. “This is part of it, you see. Every regeneration, I have to come to terms with the man I was before. I have to understand him. It’s not easy, because usually I find that the man I am doesn’t particularly like the man I was, but it’s never been this hard.”

“Oh Doctor,” Rose sighed, rubbing her thumbs over his cheek bones. “Would it help to know that I loved you when you were him? I did,” she added, when the Doctor opened his eyes. “I loved the you before him, too. And I love _you_ , in case I haven’t been clear.”

“Something else I’m not sure I understand,” the Doctor said, a bit bleakly. “You’ve loved three -”

“Four,” Rose corrected firmly. She felt a familiar twinge, thinking of her human Doctor.

“- four of me. How?”

“Let’s just call it a gift,” Rose said, and pulled him close to murmur in his ear. “Jack has it, too, I’d bet. And the three of us - that was the best it ever was, wasn’t it?” He nodded against her shoulder. “So let’s go find him.”

They landed the TARDIS well away from the bar. The Doctor mumbled something about spare parts and ran off. Rose sighed and set out in the opposite direction.

It was not the sort of place Rose would have chosen to visit on her own. She appreciated pubs and dive bars and wine bars and swanky cocktail bars, but this place - which had no sign, just a door - made her shoulder blades twitch. She didn’t consider herself particular, but she didn’t want to touch anything, much less drink anything poured behind the bar, for fear of communicable diseases. The floor was tacky, and she watched in disgust as one of patrons spat something blue and viscous onto it.

It took her a minute or two to locate Jack, tucked in a back corner, slumped over his glass. By then she’d caught the attention of a few of the other sentients in the place, but a pointed glare and a flash of the blaster at her hip made them turn grudgingly back to their drinks.

She made sure the gun was visible as she wound her way through the tables towards Jack. He didn’t look up as she dropped in the chair beside him. It was only when she reached over and placed her hand on top of his that he jerked his head up.

And stared.

And stared.

“Hey, Jack,” she said. “How’s it going?”

“Rose?” he whispered. He scrubbed a hand over his face, rubbing his eyes, and blinked. “You’re still here.”

Rose raised her eyebrows. “Blimey, Jack, what are you drinking?” She picked his glass up, sniffed it, and wrinkled her nose. Drain cleaner by the smell of it. She set it carefully aside, not quite out of reach but hopefully further out of mind.

“What are you -” Jack paused and cleared his throat. He sounded hoarse, as though he’d not spoken to anyone in a long time. She knew how that was. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking up an old friend,” she said lightly. “You?”

He shrugged. “The obvious.” He looked at her, squinting even in the low lighting. “You look different. How long’s it been for you?”

She gave him a sad, lopsided smile. “A while,” she said. “A good long while. Longer than you’d think, to look at me.”

Jack frowned, as though processing this. To her shock, his face crumpled. “Oh,” he said, his voice suddenly tight and strained. “Oh God, Rose, I’m so sorry.”

“No, no, it’s all right,” she said, scooting closer to him. He was seated on a bench, she saw, and she moved over to sit beside him and take his hand. “It’s all right, really. There’ve been some rough moments, yeah, but mostly it’s been all right for me.”

Jack gave a brief, bitter laugh. “Rough moments,” he repeated. “Yeah, you could say that.” He bent his head and closed his eyes, revealing a soul-deep weariness she recognized all too well. She moved her hand to cup the back of Jack’s neck, rubbing her fingers lightly through the short hair at the nape. He sucked in a breath as though shocked by the contact. She stilled. He lifted his head, looking at her. “Why are you here, Rose? Really?”

She thought about playing coy; there were, after all, half a dozen ways she could think of offhand to answer that question. But Jack clearly wasn’t in the mood for games or flirting. “I was feeling sad,” she said, “and I didn’t know why. And one day I was looking for the kitchen on the TARDIS and I opened a door and found your room instead. I realized I missed you. _We_ missed you.”

“We,” he said. “You and . . .”

“Yeah.”

“Is he here?”

Rose shrugged. “Somewhere. He said something about spare parts. He’s changed since you last saw him, when he introduced you to that bloke.”

“Alonso.”

“Yeah. How’d that go, anyway?”

He shrugged, looking down at the scarred tabletop. “It didn’t. I tried, I just . . . couldn’t. He looked too much like - like someone I’d lost.”

Rose wondered if the Doctor had realized that. Probably not, she reflected. “I’m sorry.”

Jack shrugged. “Anyway. New Doctor, then. What’s he like?”

Rose leaned in and bumped Jack’s shoulder with hers. “You should find out for yourself. Come with us, Jack.”

He looked up at her. For a moment, there was an expression of such longing on his face that Rose wanted to cry. _My poor blokes_ , she thought, remembering the anguish in the Doctor’s voice as he’d confessed to how he’d treated Jack. But then Jack’s eyes shuttered and he shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Why not?” Rose asked reasonably.

“I don’t know if he told you,” Jack said, his voice suddenly hard, “but I’m _wrong_. It hurts him to be in the same room as me. I don’t know why you’re different,” he added, a note of resentment creeping into his voice, “but I guess you always were.”

Rose sighed. “I don’t know why I’m different either,” she confessed. “The Doctor says we’re not quite the same, but I don’t really understand it and I haven’t cared enough to try and drag an explanation out of him. But, Jack, believe me when I say he’s changed. He wants you with us.”

Jack looked away, swallowed hard. “I don’t believe you.”

“Why would I lie to you?” she asked. He didn’t answer. She laid a hand on his wrist and squeezed. “Come with me back to the TARDIS. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, but you should meet the Doctor. Please.”

“No,” Jack said, even though Rose could see how much he wanted to. “No, you don’t know the things I’ve done. I’m not who I was.”

“Neither am I,” she pointed out. “Neither is the Doctor.”

Jack shook his head, drawing away from her. “No, you don’t understand. I’m a _monster_.”

He believed it, Rose thought, watching him reach for his drink. He tossed the rest of it back, slammed the glass back onto the table, and started to rise. She was losing him, she realized. _They_ were losing him. She stood up, ready to argue, but then he swayed, suddenly. She caught him just in time, managing to wedge herself in under his arm. He stumbled sideways into her, smashing her hip into the table. “Ow,” she muttered. “Well, now you’re definitely coming back to the TARDIS.”

“No,” he said. He tried to pull away, but he was too woozy and she had too firm a grip on him.

“Oh yes,” she countered, taking most of his weight as they moved away from the table. “If only so the Doctor can make sure you’re not about to die of alcohol poisoning.”

“Should let me die,” he muttered. “Better than a hangover.”

“A hangover might knock some sense into you,” she said, less patient now because good _God_ , he was heavy. She wished they hadn’t parked the TARDIS so far away, or that the Doctor hadn’t run off and left her to deal with Jack on her own. She wondered if she could pilfer a floatpad, dump him on it, and get him back to the TARDIS that way.

Or, she reflected, she could just get the Doctor to come pick them up.

Outside the bar, in a filthy little alley that smelled of cat pee and other, nastier things, Rose propped Jack against a convenient wall. He promptly slid down to lie in a heap on the ground. Rose wrinkled her nose and texted the Doctor. HAVE JACK. NEED A HAND AND A LIFT ASAP.

She’d barely hit _send_ when the TARDIS materialized in front of them. Jack opened his eyes, frowned, and said, “Damn.”

Rose crouched down beside him. “In about five seconds the Doctor is going to come out of the TARDIS and he and I are going to drag you inside. You have exactly that long to tell me you truly don’t want to come with us. If you do, I’ll have him help me get you checked into a hotel where you can dry out.” She paused, waiting. Jack bit his lip, looking up at her, and said nothing. “Good,” she said, in a much gentler voice. She rubbed a thumb over the arch of his cheekbone, and he leaned his head back against the wall, his eyes falling shut.

The door to the TARDIS swung open and the Doctor strode out. He looked down at them and sighed. He knelt, completely unmindful of the muck, and reached out to ghost his hand over Jack’s hair. “Oh Jack,” he murmured. “What’ve I done to you?” Jack made a small, wordless noise, though Rose couldn’t tell whether it was in response to the contact or the question.

“Come on,” Rose said, before the Doctor could start down that road again, “let’s get him inside.”

By the time they managed to push themselves to their feet with Jack held between them, stumble into the TARDIS, and stagger down the hallway to Jack’s old room, Jack had given up pretending to be unconscious. They set him down on the bed, where he sat blinking blearily. The Doctor - the coward - vanished, muttering something about the medbay, and Rose sat down beside Jack, slipping an arm around his shoulders to help prop him up. She let him lean - well, list - into her. He pressed his face into her hair and sighed. She winced at the smell of cheap alcohol on his breath. Then his breath hitched and she understood.

“Easy,” she murmured, as though to a frightened animal. “I know it’s a lot to take in. It’s all right.”

“Not all right,” he replied, thickly. “I don’t know what he told you, but it - it hasn’t been all right for me in so long - and it shouldn’t be all right, not after what I’ve done.”

“Shh,” she said, turning to hold him, even though he was rigid and unyielding in her arms. “Jack, whatever it was -”

“I murdered my grandson,” he said, harshly. “While his mother watched, while she screamed. So don’t tell me, Rose Tyler, that whatever it was, it couldn’t have been that bad. Because it was.”

Rose froze. She hadn’t pressed the Doctor for details on what had happened to Jack. He’d let slip a little about Jack’s team, and in particular Ianto, of whom, he’d said, Jack was particularly fond. She had assumed that whatever had happened had to do with Ianto’s death. But it seemed that she’d been mistaken.

Jack took advantage of her shocked, frozen silence to pull away from her. “So you see,” he continued, “you don’t really want me here. I’m sorry, Rose, but you miss someone who doesn’t even exist anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” Rose whispered. He shook his head, pulling even further away. “No, Jack, please listen. I had grandchildren, too, in the other universe. I loved them, so much. It almost broke me when I lost them. I can’t imagine what happened to you and your grandson, but it must -” She had to stop and swallow against the ache in her throat. “Jack,” she said, when she felt she could speak again. “I know you had no choice. If you never tell me anything else, I will always know that.”

Jack shook his head, then buried his face in his hands. “There was a choice,” he said, muffled. “It could have been someone else’s grandson.” His breathing hitched again, and this time, when Rose shifted closer to him, he didn’t flinch. He dropped his head to rest in the curve of her neck. “Rose. I’m so tired.”

“I know,” she said, easing him back on the bed. She smoothed his hair back and wiped away the tears with her thumb. “Rest now, all right?” She knelt back and removed his boots, then his belt. She waited for the lascivious comment, but it never came. He was staring up at the ceiling, tears still leaking out the corners of his eyes, seeping down into the hair at his temples. When she had him as comfortable as she thought he could get, she crawled up beside him and slipped her arm behind his head, cradling him in the crook of her elbow. She bent her head, letting her hair fall around them both, and pressed her forehead to his. “I know how hard it is,” she whispered. “I know how tired you are. I’ve been alive so long and I’ve lost so many people.” He made a noise, not quite a sob, and clutched at her. “But the Doctor helped me. I’ve felt so much better since coming home. Let us do that for you, too.”

He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t say _yes, please, help me_ , Rose thought, not yet. But he also didn’t say _no, don’t touch me, I deserve to hurt._

A noise from the doorway drew Rose’s attention. She looked up and saw the Doctor watching them, medscanner in hand. She gestured him forward. He came as though pulled on a string and sat on the edge of the bed. Jack didn’t react.

“Jack,” Rose said quietly, “the Doctor’s here. He’s going to scan you, all right? We want to make sure you don’t need any medical attention.”

Jack nodded, but his eyes remained stubbornly shut. The Doctor gave Rose a look before running the scanner up and down Jack’s body. He checked the read-out. “Nothing terrible,” he reported. “Evidence of some hard living, but nothing that needs to be treated. I do have something here for the hangover,” he added, producing a hypospray from somewhere inside his jacket. “What do you say, Jack?”

Jack shrugged. The Doctor gave Rose another look, this one tired and a little hopeless, and administered the spray. “There. You’ll feel right as rain when you wake up.” Jack snorted. “Well, right-er, at least,” the Doctor sighed. He rested a hand on Jack’s knee; Jack twitched, and the Doctor snatched his hand back as though he’d been burnt. “I’ll just . . . be in the console room. Thought we’d hang in the vortex awhile.”

Rose barely managed not to sigh. “Right,” she said. “I’ll be along shortly.”

The Doctor fled. Jack opened his eyes and looked up at her. “Yeah, he really wants me here,” he said bitterly.

Rose did sigh, this time. “The thing is, he does want you here. It’s just . . . he’s changed, but he’s still, well, him. ‘Emotionally constipated’ is the phrase my mother used to use.” Jack almost smiled. His mouth didn’t move, but the corners of his eyes crinkled ever so slightly. Rose counted it a win. She squeezed his hand. “Get some sleep, all right? Do you want me to stay?” Jack shook his head. Rose helped him shift himself up onto his pillow and pull up the extra blanket folded at the foot of the bed. She kissed him on the forehead, slid off the bed, and turned the light off on her way out.

In the corridor, she leaned back against the wall and buried her face in her hands. This was so much harder than she’d ever anticipated. She needed a bath, she decided, to clear her head and wash off the smell of the bar, before she could face the Doctor. She could have done with a glass of wine, too, or possibly something harder, but one of them needed to be clear-headed. Between Jack’s misery and the Doctor’s guilt, it would have to be her.

As it happened, the Doctor didn’t wait for Rose to come find him. He showed up while she was still soaking in the tub - came in, sat down on the lid of the toilet, and said absolutely nothing. His foot tapped, intermittent and a little maddening, against the tile floor.

“Care to join me?” Rose asked at last. The Doctor shook his head. He did finally stop the tapping, thank God. “It could have gone worse,” she ventured.

The Doctor shook his head again. “You see what I’m like with Jack. I don’t want to be like that, but I can’t seem to stop it. I’m trying,” he added, a little desperately, “I’m trying, but it’s just . . .” He made a frustrated noise and stood up to pace, two steps forward and back in the small room.

She reached out and grabbed his wrist. “Doctor, stop.” She sat up and tugged at his wrist until he flopped down in a boneless sprawl on the floor, then sat up, bringing them eye to eye. He hooked his chin on the side of the bathtub and looked at her. She ran a damp hand through his hair, slicking it back. “Does it really hurt you to be in the same room as him?” she asked.

The Doctor winced. “Told you, he itches. Well, it’s more like a buzzing. Only not one you can hear, one that’s right under your skin. It’s bloody uncomfortable.”

“And I don’t? Buzz, I mean?”

“No. It’s a very long, very technical explanation - which I’m sure you’re entirely capable of understanding,” he added hastily, when she cocked an eyebrow at him, “I’m just not sure I’m capable of giving it.” He paused, thoughtfully. “It used to be worse. I wouldn’t run now, like I did before.”

“Well, that’s something.”

“I suppose.” But he didn’t look like he thought it was much.

“I think,” Rose finally said, because the Doctor looked so miserable that she couldn’t just let him stew, no matter how much good she thought it’d do him to work this out on his own, “that when he wakes up, you should take him some tea. Without me.” The Doctor raised his head, looking alarmed. Rose held up a finger and he snapped his mouth shut. “You’re going to take him tea, you’re going to tell him you’re sorry, and then you’re going to hug him. And you’re not allowed to skip that last step,” she added. “This is Jack. You know how he is about touch. He can’t have changed that much.”

The Doctor nodded. He opened his mouth, then glanced at her as though for permission. She nodded, suppressing a smile. “Speaking of touch,” he said, “I was wondering - well, he’s Jack, even if he is a bit broken. It’s been just you and me, and I’ve loved every minute of it, but I was thinking that if things had been different before, it might have been the three of us. It’s probably no use to be thinking of this now, it wouldn’t even really be ethical with Jack how he is -”

“Doctor,” Rose interrupted, flicking water at him, “you have to actually finish a sentence. What are you trying to ask?” She knew, of course, but she was going to make him say it. Not making him say it would only reinforce bad habits.

The Doctor sighed in exasperation. “Jack. You, me, and Jack. Touching.”

“Oh. Do you want to?”

His eyes widened, as though he hadn’t thought she’d ask. “I was asking if you wanted to!”

“Well, yes, but it’s just as important to know if you want to. Does it hurt to touch him?”

“No! No, no, at least not measurably more than just being in the same room. But he’s Jack. It’s a bit . . .” The Doctor made a face. “Intimidating. Don’t ever tell him I said that,” he added hastily.

“My lips are sealed,” Rose promised. “But you do want to?”

The Doctor was silent for a few seconds, tracing patterns in the condensation on the side of the tub. “Yes,” he admitted at last, “but he might not. With me, anyway, I have no doubt he would with you.” He looked up and caught her eye. “And I want you to know I’d be all right with it. You and him, I mean. Touching. If you both want to, and he’d rather not with me.”

That was . . . a little surprising, all things considered. “Oh,” she said, not sure what else there was to say. “All right. Thanks. But that doesn’t change anything,” she added, sternly. “Jack isn’t going to believe you’re okay with having him here until you show him.”

He nodded. “Right. Okay. Right. What if he hits me?”

She shrugged. “Come find me and we’ll put some ice on it. But I don’t think he will.”

The Doctor nodded. He was quiet for a long time. Rose swirled her hand through the bubbles in the tub, back and forth. His eyes tracked her fingers. “He’s awake,” he said at last, very quietly.

He hadn’t slept very long, Rose thought with some worry. On the other hand - perhaps it was best for the Doctor to just get this over with. “So what are you waiting for?”

The Doctor licked his lips. “It’s just . . .”

“Just what?” she asked.

“It’s Jack,” he said, still watching her hand. “He’s important. I don’t mean for the universe or any of that rubbish. He’s important to me. And I’m just afraid. Of messing it up worse. Of messing him up worse. I’ve hurt him so many times, I just - I don’t want to do it again.”

Rose studied him. So very different, this Doctor. And there were times when it hurt terribly and times like now when she could kiss him for it - and often did. “Will it help if I promise I won’t let you?”

He looked at her, finally. “You can’t promise that.”

“Sure I can,” she said. “I promise, Doctor, that if I see you about to leap off a cliff and take Jack with you, that I will pull you both back from the edge. Metaphorically or, knowing us, literally. How’s that?”

He looked more bemused than anything else. “Better, actually. Thank you.”

“Good. Now go make your tea,” she said, flicking water at him again. “I want to wash my hair.”

He left, smiling a little. Rose settled back against the tub, feeling one part satisfied to two parts anxious. This was the hard part. She had to give the boys some space, even knowing it was entirely possible the Doctor might screw it up.

Best to keep herself busy. Her fingers were getting pruny, so she made good on what she’d said to the Doctor and washed her hair, then pulled the plug on the bathtub. She climbed out, wrapped herself in a dressing gown, and seated herself at her vanity. No make-up today. She rarely wore any here in the TARDIS, unlike before when she’d never left her room without a metric ton of mascara. She combed her hair out and put it up. Then she changed into yoga pants and a sweatshirt and decided to make a cup of tea and kill time in the library.

It was hardly her fault, she thought, that she couldn’t get to the kitchen without going past Jack’s room. Or that the Doctor appeared to have left the door open. Rose slowed, remembering her promise. She’d listen just long enough to know things were going all right, and then she’d leave them to it.

“- don’t have to do this,” Jack was saying, in a sleep roughened voice. “Say the word and I’m gone. I won’t tell Rose.”

“She’d know anyway,” the Doctor said. “And I don’t want you to leave, Jack. I’ve missed you.”

“You’ll understand if I find that hard to believe.”

“I do. But it’s true. I can’t make you believe it, of course, if you’re really determined not to -”

“I’m not _determined_ to do anything,” Jack replied, defensively. “It’s just hard to believe Rose didn’t sucker you into this. You always were willing to do anything for her. You only rescued me in the first place because Rose wanted you to.”

“No, I rescued you because I wanted a day where everyone lived, and I wasn’t going to let you mar my record.”

“That’s so much better. Thanks.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Well, what did you mean?”

“I meant . . .” The Doctor made a noise of frustration. “God, immortals are hard. Regular old work-a-day humans are much easier. They get hacked off at you, but they don’t stay hacked off for centuries.”

“No,” Jack agreed grimly. “They die.”

“Cheerful,” the Doctor said, sounding annoyed. “Fine. What I meant was . . . look, it was Rose’s idea to find you. I’m not going to lie and tell you it wasn’t. I knew this was going to be hard, but I thought - well, I thought it might be worth it. For all of us. Because we’re going to be knocking about this universe for a while, and it’d be nice if we didn’t spend all that time avoiding each other. And I missed you. And I’m sorry, so very sorry, for everything I did that was wrong, and for everything that happened to you. And . . .” The Doctor’s voice faded. Rose listened to the rustle of fabric and held her breath, all thoughts of tea forgotten.

“What are you doing?” Jack asked, voice muffled.

“Hugging you,” the Doctor replied.

“Why?”

“Because Rose told me to. She was very stern about it.”

“Jesus, Doctor, you really know how to charm a guy, don’t you?”

“And,” the Doctor said, in a rather strained voice, as though - Rose guessed - he was having a hard time holding on to his quarry, “because it’s what I should have done right away. I should have come to Cardiff, Jack. I couldn’t come during, it was a fixed point, but I should have come after. I should have found you and I should have done exactly this, and I should have told you - I should have told you that I know how it feels, how it sits in the heart, to have done the things you did. I do know. I wish I didn’t, I wish neither of us did, but I do. I do, Jack,” he said again, his voice gentling. There was a brief, soft sound, and then the Doctor went on, in a low voice Rose had to strain to hear, “If you’re a monster, Jack, then so am I. But we’re lucky, because we’ve got our own private angel - even if she does _eavesdrop shamelessly_.”

This last was added much more loudly. Rose smiled to herself - the Doctor had likely known she was there all along - and eased the door open. Her heart lightened at the sight that met her: the Doctor and Jack, curled together on the bed, Jack’s head resting against the base of the Doctor’s throat.

“Not an angel,” she said, without bothering to apologize. She sat on the bed and reached for Jack’s hand. “Just lucky so far.” She rubbed her thumb over the back of Jack’s knuckles. The Doctor held a hand out to her and she crawled up beside them, so Jack was cradled between them. She pressed a kiss to Jack’s hair. “We love you,” she whispered. “And we forgive you. And we wish you’d stop punishing yourself, because we want you with us and it hurts to watch.”

“And the truth,” the Doctor added, “is that whatever you do will never be enough. No matter how many planets or people I save, it’s never enough to make up for what I did. I can never forget it. But I can’t spend the rest of my life hurting myself for it, either. That’s what I learned with this last regeneration.”

“And those of us who don’t regenerate,” Rose added, “just have to figure it out.”

Jack didn’t answer. Rose wrapped her arms around him. The Doctor kissed Jack’s forehead, just as Rose had earlier, then bent his head and kissed him on the mouth. Jack stiffened at first, and Rose thought he would pull away. But then, slowly, he seemed to melt into the Doctor. His hands came up to rest on the Doctor’s shoulders, and Rose felt a thrum of tension she’d hardly been aware of leave Jack’s body. He must have wanted this for so long, she thought - not the kissing, though she bet he’d wished for that since his very first night on the TARDIS, but the acceptance, the unconditional love. She had always felt secure in the Doctor’s affection; Jack had never had that luxury, even before he was immortal.

The kiss went on rather longer than Rose had expected. The Doctor made a noise, not quite a moan, and visibly deepened it. Rose felt a pulse of heat, low in her belly. They weren’t there yet; the Doctor was right, it almost wouldn’t be ethical, with Jack as broken as he still was. But when they did get there, it would be _amazing._

“Jack,” the Doctor murmured, when the kiss ended. “Jack. My Jack.” He looked up at her. “My Rose. Everywhere and always.”

“Everywhere and always,” she echoed. Jack was silent. He couldn’t say it yet, Rose thought. But he would, someday. And for now, that was good enough.

 _Fin._   



End file.
